Hadley Beckett's Next Dish, page 2
I kept talking. I know I kept talking. But I really don’t know what exactly I said next. I got a little too caught up in the realization that my righteous confrontation was quickly morphing into a situation where I was on the verge of apology. I wasn’t even sure how that had happened.
“That’s not it,” Glenn said as my attention snapped back into focus. “We love you around here. You know that. The network is thrilled with your ratings, and with the magazine launching next week, your audience is only going to grow. It’s just that . . .”
“It’s just what?”
He pulled me a little further away and lowered his voice even more. “As you know, Max has had a bad week.”
How in the world would I know? Why in the world would I care?
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that Max has had a bad week. How can I help?”
“That’s very sweet of you.” Glenn squeezed my arm and smiled. “I think he’ll be okay. I knew you’d understand.”
Seriously? Was I even capable of sarcasm? I could have sworn that my offer of help had been dripping in it. That had certainly been my intent . . .
He continued, my masterful sarcasm having been artfully deflected. “I know you’re the praying type. I’m pretty sure Max could use some of it.”
What was I even supposed to do with that? I couldn’t be offended that I was known for being the praying type. I was the praying type. But I did not want to pray for Maxwell Cavanagh. All I wanted was for my brilliant Indian/Southern infusion to walk all over his toddler-ready finger food/truffle/mashed pea/foie gras infusion, and then to get the heck out of there.
But when you are the praying type, it’s not easy (or, probably, advisable) to refuse to pray for someone just because they’re a nincompoop.
I groaned softly. “Can we please just finish this?”
“Stuart!” Glenn abruptly shouted, shattering the veil of discretion. “Count it down! And get Hadley a drink if she wants one.”
Max whooped, as if now the party could get started. But Stuart, thankfully, knew me, and just threw his eyes open comically wide as he passed and said, “On your marks, please. We’ve got the transition shots. Let’s pick it up from there. Ten seconds!”
Chef Beckett. Chef Cavanagh. Please bring your dishes forward.
We completed the walk to the judges’ table and set our creations before them. Finally. I looked over at Max’s dish and felt simultaneous admiration and irritation. How? In the midst of all of the drama—all of his drama—how had he managed to create a beautiful jambalaya bourguignonne, an infusion dish he made up on the spot, just as I had made up mine, that looked as if it were ready to be served at any Michelin-starred restaurant in the world?
“Chef Beckett, please tell us about your final dish.”
Why couldn’t it be enough to just be really good at cooking? Or, in my case, really good at cooking and exceptionally good at baking? When had that stopped being enough? When had it been determined that in order to be truly successful in the food industry, you had to be on television?
I took a deep breath and prepared to explain the dish to the judges, and to all the world, I guess. I was so grateful that when I heard the sound of my voice, it seemed to be full of confidence. Confidence I really wished I was feeling.
“Today, Chefs, I have prepared for you a coconut-curry chicken, served on a naan waffle. And while the flavor profile is a little more on the exotic side, I think even exotic food should be comfort food. To that end, you’ll see that you also have a side of warmed sweet and slightly spicy plum chutney. I’ll ask you to pour that over the dish, as you would maple syrup over the traditional Southern version of chicken and waffles.”
I held my breath as I looked down at my dish one more time, and then gently pushed the plate in closer to them. They poured the chutney and then cut into the chicken, and I released a bit of the air I was holding when I saw how easily it cut. My shoulders relaxed as the waffle sprung down and back again beneath the pressure of forks. And finally, my teeth freed my bottom lip from their clenches as three poker faces morphed into expressions of satisfaction and contentment.
“Thank you, Chef Beckett,” the lead judge stated with a smile. “And Chef Cavanagh, what have you prepared?”
For the next two minutes I marveled. It was as if a switch had been flipped, and suddenly Max Cavanagh, grade A jerk, was replaced by a culinary and presentational genius, seemingly worthy of at least some of the honors and commendations which had been bestowed upon him.
He was so smooth and nuanced, and he flirted effortlessly. With the judges. With the cameras. With all of America and the world, it seemed. The pompous, verbose egotist disappeared and a quiet, perfectly subtle Casanova appeared. It was almost indecipherable—and I imagined that to be on the receiving end of his charm would be completely disarming. You know . . . if you hadn’t spent two days growing increasingly convinced that he was somehow the spawn of a serpent and a rabid raccoon.
“Thank you, Chef Cavanagh.”
The judges looked just as satisfied and content after eating his dish as they did after eating mine, and I felt whatever confidence had developed slipping away. Ah well. The anticipation of a second-place finish wasn’t so bad.
But man, oh man, I hated that he would be the one to beat me.
Ten minutes later Max and I were sitting at the Chefs’ Table—a long, rustic wooden slat with equally rustic benches, none of which matched the decor of the “stage” area, but at least felt less cold and staged than the rest of the set. It was at the Chefs’ Table where my opponents and I had sat during the filming of each episode, while our fates were determined. One camera crew was out filming the judges breaking down our dishes while another sat with us as we bantered. At least banter was the goal and expectation.
Max and I did not banter. Certainly not with each other.
“Hadley?” Stuart whispered my name from behind the camera. I looked up and saw him gesture for me to join him.
I hopped down from my bench and walked over to him. “What’s up? I thought we were rolling.”
“We were. But, I mean . . . you guys have to give us something.”
I crossed my arms. “I think we’ve given you plenty. Right now I’m just grateful for the silence.”
“Come on, Hayley,” Max called out. “I think we can handle thirty seconds of small talk.”
I glowered at him and sighed. “Fine.” I returned to the bench as I added, “But please, for all that is good and holy, can you remember my name for those thirty seconds? Please?”
He downed the last of his drink—not even the same one he’d been finishing off a few minutes ago, I was pretty sure—and handed the glass to Stuart. “Of course I can, Harley.” He laughed uproariously at his joke, which I was actually strangely comforted by. At least he knew Harley wasn’t my name either.
“We’re rolling,” Stuart said. Nervously, I think.
And still we sat in silence.
Okay, suck it up, Hadley, I lectured myself. Be the bigger person. Again. If he doesn’t want to put in any effort, it will all come across plain as day on TV.
“Your dish looked really great,” I told him, for the benefit of our future audience.
“Thank you,” he said with a nod. “Yours looked better than I expected.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Stuart shake his head and then bury it in his hands.
“And what did you expect, Chef?”
Max shrugged. “You don’t have to be offended—”
“I’m not,” I lied. “I would just be really interested in knowing what you expected.”
“It’s nothing personal, it’s just that very few chefs can pull off all Southern, all the time. I mean, it worked for Harlan Sanders, but—”
I nearly choked on my indignation. “You’re comparing my cooking to fast-food fried chicken?”
He shrugged yet again. “Well, I mean, it’s not quite as flavorful as the Colonel’s, of course, but you’re just getting started. You’ll get there.”
“That’s it!” I exclaimed, jumping up from the bench and stomping to the door. “I’m done.”
Stuart placed his finger to his headset to put it closer to his ear. “They’re ready for you. Come on, Hadley. It’s almost done. This is it.” He put an arm out to usher me back into the main studio.
Aioli. Breadbasket. Chopsticks. Dish rack. Espresso machine. Flour sifter. Gravy boat.
I was going to need at least the entire alphabet in order to actually cool off, but that was going to have to do for now.
“This was the closest competition in the history of America’s Fiercest Chef,” Xavier began as soon as film began rolling once again. “Ultimately, our judges chose one chef to carry the mantle and the title. One chef will be named victorious. One chef will . . .”
Oh my goodness, get on with it!
The rest of it was a blur, and not just because it was all so repetitive and melodramatic. Although, that certainly didn’t help. I zoned out because I just couldn’t take one more hyperbolic guarantee that the winner’s life would completely change, and that they would never be bored or financially strapped or unknown or alone or, I don’t know . . . stuck in traffic ever again.
So when I heard Xavier say my name, it took me a moment to remember the rules. Did they say the name of the winner or the loser first? The loser, right? I plastered on a disappointed-but-resigned-and-grateful-for-the-opportunity smile and took a step toward the judges, to shake their hands and say thanks.
“You’re kidding me,” Max said. At least that’s pretty much what he said. His version was somewhat less family friendly.
I rolled my eyes. Really? He was even going to make a big deal about the fact that I hadn’t shaken his hand and congratulated him first? Granted, that was the way it was usually done on these competitions. Granted, that would have been the polite thing for me to do.
But come on! He was lucky I didn’t haul off and slug him.
I sighed and turned back to face Max, my arm extended. His arm extended as well, and for one fleeting moment I considered the possibility that we might actually end this thing with civility. But then I realized it was his left arm reaching out, and it wasn’t meeting up with the right arm I had extended. He wasn’t going to try to hug me, was he? He wasn’t that much of an imbecile, surely.
I was wrong. He was so much more of an imbecile than I had ever imagined. He wasn’t coming in for a hug at all. As bad as that would have been, the reality was even worse. He reached past me to the judges’ table and with one fluid motion, struck the edge of my plated masterpiece and caused it to flip into Chef Aguste Bisset’s lap.
I gasped and, regrettably, muttered, “Well, I never!” I was always so disappointed in myself when Southern colloquialisms dripped from me freely in the most stressful of moments.
I don’t know a lick of French, apart from necessary cooking terms and the essentials to assure any French visitors to my restaurant that I’m merely ignorant, not rude. But I was fairly confident that Chef Bisset’s exclamation was even less flattering than my Minnie Pearl–inspired outburst.
I heard Glenn call out “Keep rolling!” and I whipped around to glare at him, but he couldn’t be bothered by my disapproval, I suppose. He was, after all, in the process of filming the Culinary Channel’s first foray into Jersey Shore–level entertainment.
“Chef Maxwell,” Xavier said, his voice sounding more confident than his cautious steps back from the table appeared. “We’ll kindly thank you to control—”
“Her?” Max asked with a sneer and, if I’m not mistaken, disgust as he gestured toward me. “With her ‘y’all come back’ and her ‘kiss my grits’ . . . her?” He took another step toward the judges’ table, causing them all to scoot back in fear of what he might do.
“I have never said ‘kiss my grits’ in my entire life!” I protested, quite possibly zeroing in on the wrong thing first. Although, seriously. Kiss my grits? I may have been a little too folksy at times, but I would not stand there and be accused of being a folksy grandmother.
Besides, I was prepared to add, you won. You are the better chef, even if you are the lesser human. So kiss my ever-lovin’ grits, Maxwell Cavanagh.
But before I could say any of that, a funny thing happened. My brain kicked into gear. Finally. They’d said my name first. I’d watched four seasons of this show, in preparation for my appearance. Back when I’d thought that my episodes would bear even a slight resemblance to any episodes that had gone before, I’d studied the patterns. What the judges liked, what they hated, what they were tired of, what they would view as fresh and innovative. Once my brain was working, I saw it all clearly. I knew this show inside and out.
And they always announced the winner’s name first.
“I won?” I muttered.
Thankfully no one heard my muttering. They were all too busy being verbally assaulted by Max’s deluge of insults. Not that I’m thankful about that part, of course.
In context, his temper tantrum made a lot more sense. I mean, it still made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but a temper tantrum over winning would somehow make less than no sense whatsoever.
A few moments later, about the time security was called in and Max was forcibly removed from the set, hurling accusations and threats all the way to the door and beyond, it began to really sink in.
I won. I defeated Max Cavanagh, who was generally regarded as the greatest chef of our generation. I had done it my way—with manners and a whole lot of butter and salt—when faced with unbelievable circumstances that would have caused even the cook at a firehouse to crumble. I’d proven that I was more than just a great pastry chef from Nashville. I’d made it clear that I could hold my own alongside the big guns.
It was just too bad the world would never know, since there was absolutely no chance whatsoever that America’s Fiercest Chef’s tribute to All My Children would ever see the light of day.
1. Freeze fresh ingredients for up to three months.
HADLEY
“That’s it for today, friends. I’m already looking forward to next time, when I’ll show you some tricks for making biscuits that even your gluten-free friends will fight over. And before you ask, no. They aren’t gluten-free. I never said it would be wise for your gluten-free friends to eat them. That’s another story altogether!”
Movement caught my eye, just to the right of the camera. Though he stood in the shadows, I was instantly certain that I didn’t recognize the silhouette. It was undoubtedly a man. Beyond that, I didn’t have a clue. My little makeshift studio didn’t attract guests very often, so my curiosity nearly got the best of me, but the silent snap of Stuart’s fingers pulled back my focus.
“I’m also going to give you a peek into my tried-and-true methods for making sure big family events don’t become overwhelming. It really is possible to enjoy hosting a houseful of people. Well . . . that depends on what your family’s like, I suppose. Regardless, no one has to die!”
The unfamiliar guest’s shoulders bounced up and down. Suddenly, his eyes shot upward, and he began taking in his surroundings with seemingly newfound interest. My eyes followed his. I just couldn’t help it. The intensity with which he began looking around left me no choice. He acted as if there could be a sniper in the rafters, and as desperately as I kept hoping the network would build me a new kitchen, that really wasn’t the way I wanted to go about getting it.
“Until next time . . . I’m Hadley Beckett. Thanks for spending some of your precious time at home with me.”
Ugh. I loved my show. I was grateful that I got to do what I loved. And without a doubt, the kitchen they had designed for me in the Brooklyn studio I inhabited was more spacious than any apartment in which I had ever lived. But that didn’t change the fact that every time I had to act like I was actually at home when filming At Home with Hadley, I felt like I was selling my soul, just the tiniest bit. Each time I had to say it, I was always filled with this vision of a very Dorian Gray–esque portrait of me on the wall, which had begun as a cute and thin-despite-all-the-comfort-food Hadley of her twenties. But each time I sold my soul, the portrait began showing the years.
And certainly the pounds.
Why was it that unlike with Dorian Gray’s arrangement, the reality staring back at me in the mirror didn’t stay young and impervious to carbs?
“Hey, Hadley, there’s someone here who would like to meet you,” Stuart called out as he walked the stranger toward me.
Ah yes. The trained assassin sent to, hopefully, fire at will, not hit a single person, and completely destroy my outdated appliances.
“Hi there,” I greeted him with a smile. As much as my sniper theory intrigued me, I knew it was much more likely that he had just won a contest in some fan group on the Culinary Channel’s website or something. “I’m Hadley Beckett.”
“Oh, I am fully aware of who you are, Chef Beckett. I’m a big fan, and I’ve been following your career probably longer than you have.”
I chuckled, frighteningly aware for the first time that the line between groupie and trained assassin could be less discernible than I had ever suspected.
“Really? Well, that’s flattering! I’m so glad you’re able to be out here today. But I really must insist you call me Hadley. And what’s your name?”
He put his hand out to shake mine. “Leo. Leo Landry.”
“It’s great to meet you, Leo. I don’t think you caught the entire taping, but I hope it was worth the trip for you. I know it’s quite the trek to get all the way out here, but hopefully you’ve got some visits to other studios lined up? They call this neighborhood Foodie Row, there are so many Culinary Channel studios around here.”
“I know. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the area. But I’m actually just here to see you.”
I try not to think the worst of people. Really, I do. I try to be welcoming and trusting, and apart from occasionally wondering if a guest in the studio is an assassin, I think I do a pretty good job at that. But that didn’t keep me from darting my eyes around to make sure I wasn’t alone with Leo Landry, the stranger who had come to Foodie Row just to see me.
